Thursday, August 13, 2015

Final Transcript

FX NETWORK: THE STRAIN

Aug. 10, 2015/10:00 am PDT

SPEAKERS

Kristy Silvernail

Corey Stoll

PRESENTATION

ModeratorLadies
and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the FX Network’s The Strain conference call.At this time, all participants are in a
listen-only mode.Later, we will conduct
a question and answer session and instructions will be given at that time.(Operator instructions.)As a reminder, today’s conference is being
recorded.

I
would now like to turn the conference over to our speaker, Ms. Kristy
Silvernail.Please go ahead.

KristyHello
and welcome to The Strain conference call
with series star Corey Stoll who plays Dr. Ephraim Goodweather.I’d like to thank all of you for joining us
today and remind you that this call is for print purposes only, no audio may be
used.The Strain is currently airing its second season on Sunday nights
at 10:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific.And
in case you didn’t hear, FX announced a Season 3 pick up at TCA last week.

With
that said, let’s go ahead and take our first question.

ModeratorOur
first question today comes from the line of Heather McClatchey with TV Goodness,
please go ahead.

HeatherAlright,
good morning, thanks so much for talking to us this morning and congratulations
on the renewal.

CoreyThank
you.

HeatherSo,
in the opener of this season, Eph told Fed that he is not a very good vampire
killer so he’s going to go back to what he knows.And now that he’s on to something, what’s sort
of driving him at this point?Is it really
vengeance against the master and all of the vampires or is it really just to
try and redeem himself in the eyes of the CDC and the people that sort of put
him out to pasture because they thought he wasn’t valid in what he was trying
to tell them?

CoreyWell
yeah, I think it’s really both.I think
obviously it’s personal now that Kelly has turned and is actively trying to
turn Zach but I think just his personality is such, too, that he’s won at everything
pretty much in his life, up till now.Now he’s in a situation where he’s lost more in the last week than he
has in his entire life.So he’s
obviously a very—he’s always been a very alpha guy and very type A.He’s been knocked down numerous pegs and is
admitting such but he still can’t let go on either front, so it’s personal but
it’s also professional.

HeatherGreat,
well thank you very much.I’m really
enjoying this season.

CoreyThank
you.

ModeratorWe
do have a question from the line of Christina Avina from On Request Magazine.Please
go ahead.

ChristinaThank
you.Hi, good morning Corey.

CoreyGood
morning.

ChristinaLet
me ask you, the majority of your roles, and you have a long, long list to your
credit, they’re very much more reality based than this scenario on The Strain.How has it been as an actor for you to sort
of operate in this world, especially one created by Guillermo del Toro where
anything can really happen?It must be
very interesting.

CoreyYeah,
it’s an interesting challenge and it’s one where I think we took—Carlton and I at the
beginning of Season 2 felt the need to sort of adjust a little bit because so
much of what the show is about is about the tone and the look and the style and
the feel of it which is unique.There are
other vampire shows and other vampire movies out there but Guillermo brings
something unique and so trying to find that right balance to sort of be in the
same show.

I
think it’s a pretty good challenge with this show where the stakes are
incredibly high but it’s not the same world that we live in, and there’s also a
real, sort of a wicked sense of humor that runs throughout the whole
thing.I think in this season there’s a
lot of conversations between Carlton and myself about how to have me participate
in that sense of humor because I think the danger is often to sort of fall into
melodrama.It’s sort of about being in
that same world where these stakes are incredibly high, but you have to sort of
keep one part of your tongue in your cheek a little bit.

ChristinaGreat
answer that really does clear it up.Thank you so much.

CoreySure.

ModeratorAnd
we do have a question from the line of Aaron Sagers with NBC Universal.Please go ahead.

AaronHi,
Corey, thanks so much for joining us today; I appreciate your time.I’m curious Eph, in last night’s episode,
when he throws his former boss off a train, sort of I guess a two-part—

CoreyBy
accident.

AaronDid
he have a choice or did he make the choice to kill him?

CoreyNo,
he didn’t; he didn’t. It was really a [audio
disruption] move to not get hit and before what he knew what was happening, he
had killed him.Now it was in his best
interest probably to kill him but this is—it’s still obviously a very big deal,
it’s his first human kill.No, he did
not intend to kill him.

AaronWell
now that he crossed that line will this open up a door to sort of a darker Eph,
a guy that’s willing to do more and cross the line a little bit more easily?

CoreyYeah,
I think you can say that.The first time
he killed anybody intentionally he was being attacked and that was sort of
purely defensive.As the first season
went on, he became more inured to killing to the point where he doesn’t really
sort of flinch killing people who are completely turned.

Then
he crossed the line, again, at the beginning of this season experimenting on
freshly turned people and then this is another one, and then sort of the ratchet
that sort of keeps pushing him past these lines that he never thought he would
cross.But yeah, it definitely from that
point on to the rest of the season, he is in a different place, morally.

AaronThank
you.

CoreySure.

ModeratorWe
do have a question from the line of Brent Hankins from Nerd Repository.Please go ahead.

BrentHey,
Corey, thanks for taking a few minutes with us this morning.

CoreyNo
worries, Nerd Repository, that’s awesome.

BrentThank
you, appreciate that.Hey, before we
jump into The Strain, I just wanted
to say real quick Ant-Man was
probably my favorite movie of the summer so far, so I hope you had as much fun
making it as I had watching it.

CoreyProbably
more.

BrentAlright,
so at Comic-Con we spoke to you a little bit and you said that this season you
would really see a lot more of the relationship develop between Eph and his
son.I wondered for you as an actor,
since they’ve recast Zach for this season, if it’s been more difficult to kind
of formulate that relationship because you don’t have the first season to kind
of draw on working with the other actor?

CoreyThe
material was so different from Season 1 to Season 2 in terms of the types of
scenes that I had.It really is almost—it
would almost be a whole new sort of relationship even with the same actor.I think maybe that had something to do with
the recasting with a sense of that this character was going in a very different
direction from where he had been in the first season.

So,
just the very nature of the scenes are so different.In the first season, Zach was really an
object really in the fight between Kelly and Eph.Here in this season he’s much more willful
and self-governed.

BrentAlright,
thanks very much.

CoreySure.

ModeratorWe
have a question from the line of Angela Dawson from Front Row Features.Please go ahead.

AngelaHi,
Corey.

CoreyHey.

AngelaI
just wanted to ask you, there was a lot made of the “Wig Gate.”I just wanted to ask you, are you kind of
relieved that that’s behind you now and were surprised at all the attention
that that got while it did?

CoreyYes,
I’m relieved and I spoke about this at the TCAs that it was, just from the
sense that it was a distraction for the audience.It’s unfortunate, and there’s an unfortunate
bargain that every actor has to make; they don’t have to make, but often makes
is that the more you work the more recognizable you are.That can be helpful in getting you more work
but it’s detrimental to your job as an actor because you’re less able to
disappear into the role.

I
can see why someone like Johnny Depp has gotten so enamored of really intense
hair and makeup for his roles because when you get that famous it can sort of
be the only way to really do your job, just sort of become somebody else.So that’s an unfortunate thing that people’s
ability to see past the image.It was
limited here.So yeah, it’s a relief to
have that not be an issue in this particular project.

AngelaGreat,
thanks a lot.

CoreySure.

ModeratorWe
do have a question from the line of Sandra Perez with The Hidden Remote.Please go ahead.

SandraGreat.

CoreyHey.

SandraIn
the last episode we saw the vampire children kind of going into full action now.Can you tell us how much—what factor will
they play in the future episodes?

CoreyWell,
the feelers are—

SandraYes.

Corey—the
formidable part of the Strigoi Army.They’re fast, they can crawl on walls, and they play an important part
of the master’s arsenal going forward the rest of the season.

SandraAlright,
and what about Eph’s alcoholism?We’ve
seen it gradually increase.Can we
expect to see that affecting how he handles the whole situation?Will that play a big role?

CoreyYeah,
definitely.He does not sober up the
rest of the season.He was never the
best fighter in the world; but, no, he’s a little easier and a little bit more
handicapped.

SandraRight,
thank you so much.

CoreySure.

ModeratorWe
have a question from the line of Suzanne Lanoue from The TV MegaSite.Please go ahead.

SuzanneGood
morning, Corey.

CoreyGood
morning.

SuzanneI
was wondering since Ant-Man was
mentioned, has your life changed much since the big hit movie came out.Are you recognized more?

CoreyYou
know, I have not noticed a big difference.

SuzanneOh.

CoreyI
was pretty recognizable before and was stopped pretty often.The one thing that I was sort of bracing
myself for was that children would be stopping me and that would sort of be
another level of, sort of, intensity, but I think children don’t quite, they’re
not expecting to see people from movies walking around.

I
remember growing up, my elementary school was on the same block as Christopher
Reeve’s apartment.I remember very
vividly seeing him, you know we were a group and seeing him walking down the
street and you know, everybody just is going crazy that there was
Superman.Then occasionally he would
have like a disguise he would put on.He
had glasses and I think he even put on a fake beard or something because you
know, that you had Superman living on the same block as an elementary school
could be a real problem.So I was sort
of expecting the worst, but that doesn’t seem to be my problem.

SuzanneAs
a quick follow-up, if Ephraim were to get into a fight with Darren Cross, ‘Yellowjacket,’
who do you think would win?

CoreyDarren
Cross.

SuzanneHe
fights dirty?

CoreyYeah,
and Darren Cross has a daily workout session; he’s in top shape and he’s very
aggressive.

SuzanneAlright,
thanks very much.

CoreySure.

ModeratorWe
do have a question from the line of Jamie Ruby with Scifivision.com.Please go ahead.

JamieHi,
Corey, thanks for talking to us today.

CoreySure.

JamieSo,
there’s a lot of really great and gross makeup and special effects and
everything in the show.Can you talk
about working with them and also was there any that’s ever really grossed you
out?

CoreyThis
season there were a few things in the beginning in the first season, there was
like a bashed in head and a couple bashed in heads and the autopsy.In this season there seems to be a little bit
of, at least from my feelings, this is my exposure to it, a little bit of a
break from that.

Just
in terms of my exposure to the makeup, it’s sort of a daily—it’s an amazing
thing to see on a daily basis.You come
in at 6:00 a.m. in the morning on a Monday and the makeup people have been
there for hours already churning out this army of vampires who all have their
own unique, you know, level of transformation and different degrees of turning
into vampires.It’s really an incredible
level of artistry and industry.It’s
really a bit of a conveyor belt but every vampire is sort of a bespoke job.

JamieYeah,
and then is there anybody in particular you took inspiration from when you
started the role, either a character, well besides the book, I mean obviously?

CoreyNo,
I mean, surely I wasn’t modeling the character after anybody.No, no, I really wasn’t.There’s all of the, sort of great, cool
actors who have played irascible, brilliant, you know like [indiscernible] but
I don’t want to name any of them because then that will be the headline.

JamieThanks.

CoreySure.

JamieThanks
a lot.

ModeratorWe
do have a question from the line of Jonathan Correia from iHorror.com.

JonathanHi,
Corey, thank you for talking with us today and, again, congratulations on the
renewal for third season.

CoreyThank
you.

JonathanIn
the first season Eph was much more involved with the actual hand to hand
fighting with the strigoi, especially with the second season there’s been a lot
of escalation and a lot of really neat and different fight scenes with them,
especially when Dutch and Fet fought the Strigoi in the YMCA.Now I’m just wondering, especially since Eph
has been taking more of a—I mean he’s still a very important character in the
war but he’s much more removed from the fighting.Do you expect him to fight more, and also do
you miss doing all the fight scenes at all?

CoreyIn
terms of in total between the two seasons, it’s about the same.In the first bunch of episodes Eph is taking
a much more—he’s using biochemistry to fight the strigoi.Especially like that fight scene that I had
with Barnes was actually one of the more—I think a lot of it was actually cut,
but it was one of the more involved fights that I’ve had in either season.Definitely moving forward there’s more
fighting.

JonathanExcellent.Just one more question, a lot of shows these
days, you know, there’s that hard decision of whether or not there’s going to
be a definite end, in like, Breaking Bad,
they knew they wanted to end around Season 5, and in other shows they’re made
to keep going, like The Walking Dead.Is there any plan for a definite ending of The Strain or are you guys going to keep
going?

CoreyI
mean, according to Carlton, it’s a very specific 5 to 6 episode arc, where at
the end of—it will go for three more seasons.The idea is not to feel the need to tread water and sort of stretch it
out and the conception of it is as a [indiscernible].

JonathanExcellent,
thank you so much for answering my questions today.

CoreySure.

ModeratorOur
last question of the day comes from the line of Evan Griffin from
theyoungfolks.com.Please go ahead.

EvanHi,
Corey, thanks for doing the Q&A with us.

CoreySure.

EvanThis
has been a consistent theme with the rest of the cast we’ve talked with, but I
was curious if there was this theme, something by Guillermo del Toro, any kind
of a creep factor, was there something that was a horror film, horror icon or a
creepy story that really stuck with you in your youth that resurfaces when
you’re on set with these things?

CoreyI
don’t know if there’s something that resurfaces; it’s hard to explain but it’s
just when you’re on the set, there’s a moment when you first get on set where
you see the lighting and the makeup and everything and there is a moment of,
wow, that’s really cool.And then by the
fourth set up and the twentieth take, you know, it just becomes work.

You’re
playing make-believe, so you’re getting yourself into a state of terror.The stuff isn’t really scary on its own
pretty much after your first time doing it.

EvanAnd—

CoreyWhat?

EvanSorry,
I was just going to do a quick follow-up question.You mentioned Johnny Depp briefly earlier,
have you had the chance to see a cut of Black
Mass yet and is there anything really in particular you’re excited about
when it comes out in September?

CoreyI’m
sorry, you broke up a little bit there, have I seen Black Mass?

EvanHave
you seen Black Mass and is there
anything you’re excited about when it comes out?

CoreyYeah,
I’ve seen it and it’s great. Yeah, it’s
an incredibly complex story to tell with a lot of characters and in sort of a
complicated idea of what the power structures are within the Mob and within the
FBI and Justice Department.It’s very
elegantly, I think, told and the performances across the board are really
fine.The whole movie, I’m really, I’m
proud to have my small part in it.

EvanExcellent,
thank you.

CoreySure.

KristyAlright,
well thank you, again, to everybody for joining us today and especially, Corey,
we really appreciate your time.As a
reminder The Strain is Sunday nights
at 10:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific.If
you have any lingering questions go ahead and give me a call at 310-369-3699,
otherwise you may now disconnect.Thanks,
everyone!